Figurative Language

Figurative language is one of my favorite topics to teach!  I love witnessing students find their creativity and have fun experimenting with different figurative language devices in their writing.

I created mini anchor charts to cover some of the most common types of figurative language that are taught in elementary:  simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, hyperbole and idiom.  Each anchor chart includes a definition and example.

I've decided to do something extra special for all my blog readers, because you all are the best.  You can grab six figurative language anchor charts for FREE by clicking HERE.

Leave me a message in the comment and let me know your favorite type of figurative language to teach.  I'd love to know!

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Dollar Tree Finds

It's almost back to school time!  Can you believe it?  With back to school around the corner it is inevitable that teachers will be starting to spend money on their classroom, if they haven't already.  Many people overlook Dollar Tree, but there are so many fantastic items for your classroom here.  The best part is.... they are affordable!

I was at Dollar Tree the other day and saw a lot of great items for the classroom.   These are my top 5 finds that I recommend you pick up on your next stop.

1.  Tumbling Tower Game

I have probably ten of these in my classroom.  I also buy small snack containers, from Dollar Tree of course, to hold the pieces of each game in.  We use these games in a few different ways.  Throughout the year the students will work in groups to review an instructional skill.  We use these games to make it a bit more fun.

Step 1: Student A answers a question from a worksheet or task card.
Step 2:  The rest of the group discusses question and answer to determine if student A is correct.
Step 3:  Student A takes a turn at mini Jenga game if answer is correct.
Step 4:  next player goes

2.  Dry Erase Paddle

I've seen these posted on social media, but this is the first time I've seen these at my Dollar Tree.  You could use these in small groups or whole group to hold individual students accountable.  Students can respond to questions then hold up their answers when signaled to.   I love this for a quick formative assessment, especially in math class.

Dollar Tree does sell dry erase markers, but I don't recommend them.  They don't last long and the tips seem to get destroyed easier than other brands.  If you watch sales, specifically during back to school season, you can usually find Expo brand for a low price.

3.  Magnetic Tins

This is a bit of an unusual find, but hear me out.  These small tins are magnetized and hold well to a white board.  A variety of small teacher supplies can be held in here for easy access, such as paperclips or push pins.  Dollar Tree also sells a larger version, but I prefer the small.

4.  Microfiber Facial Pads

This is probably my favorite Dollar Tree find!   You need these in your classroom.  You need multiple packs of these in your classroom.  Without a doubt, these facial pads are the best dry erase markers you will ever find.  Trust me.  They come in a variety of colors and are a great deal at 3/$1.  If they start to get dirty, just toss them in the washing machine.  You'll get years of use out of each one.

5.  Foam Dry Erase Blocks

I have never seen these before, but I love them!  There were so many ideas floating around in my head about how I could use these.  Here are a few ideas:

1.  Brain Breaks:  You could write various activities/games on it and a student could roll the dice to see which brain break the class will do.
2.  Math Problems:  Depending on the grade, you could put various numbers on it for students to manipulation.  I'm thinking single digit addition, multiplication, double digit addition, subtraction, and the list goes on!
3.  Reading:  What if you put various open ended comprehension questions on each side?  Students would roll the dice and have to answer the question about a piece of text.  For example, what is the main idea or what problem is a character trying to solve?

I would definitely buy multiple of these to keep on hand.  The possibilities are endless!

So, those are my top 5 Dollar Tree finds for this week.  I'm sure I'll find some more "must have" items next month!  What are you favorite items at Dollar Tree?  Let me know! 

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Teacher Appreciation Gift

I'm in charge of the National Elementary Honor Society at my school and decided to have my kids create simple and easy gifts for my amazing staff.  With teacher appreciation coming up, it was the perfect timing! It cost less than $20 to make these for our staff and the students really enjoyed it.

I created these simple tags and had students color them in.

I took off the "from NEHS" portion and uploaded the template for you all.  You can click HERE to download it for free.

The students simply taped their label onto a bottle of water, then tied a tea mix in to the top.  It was easy to hole punch the mix-ins to allow the kids to tie them on.

They turned out so cute and I think the teachers will LOVE them!!  

What are you some of the best easy (and cheap) teacher appreciation gifts you have seen or received!?

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What Would Danny Do?

My son and I were lucky to receive a complimentary copy of the fabulous book What Would Danny Do?  We both absolutely LOVED it, so I knew I had to share it with you all.

This book is unlike any other children's book.  It is a "choose your own path" story.

The story follows a day in the life of a young boy named Danny.  Throughout Danny's day he is faced with various choices he can make regarding his behavior.

In each situation it is very clear which choice is the "better" choice, but I love how all the choices are realistic.  It is easy to imagine a child making either of the choices presented, which is great for conversation starters on how our feelings often impact our choices.

There are NINE different endings to this book.  NINE!  Not only did my son love reading about Danny, but he enjoyed challenging himself to find the nine different endings.  It required him using critical thinking skills because he had to remember the different choices he had used and try to figure out different combinations to get to the various endings.

The book is easy to follow.  It is very clear where the choices are and when the story ends.

At the end of each story Danny realizes that he has the power to choose how his day is.  I love this message for kids!  Many kids experience big feelings and it's so important they realize they have the "power to choose" how they react to these feelings.

I haven't taken this book to school yet, but I already know my students are going to absolutely love it.  Not only is it a fun book to read, but the message is exceptional.

If you're interested in checking out the book, you can head to AMAZON.  Click the photo below to check it out.

What books do you use in your classroom to teach students how important their choices are??  Let me know in the comments.  I'd love to check them out! :) 

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Meet the Teacher 2017

Meet the Teacher is always a stressful (and exciting) time.  At my school, we have an entire week to get ready before the kids come.  Meet the Teacher is typically the Thursday before school comes back.  I feel like I spend half the week making my room look presentable, and then just end up changing it in the first couple of weeks of school.

With that said though, I do not feel like I go over the top for Meet the Teacher.  I try to make my room look inviting and I ensure everything is set up for easy organization.  The night is busy and crazy with families coming in and I like to be able to spend time talking with the kids about their summer and upcoming school year.  I do not like having to spend the whole time telling parents where to put supplies and what papers I need signed.

Here are a few pictures to share how I set up:

I picked up this Hooray balloon from Target a few weeks ago.  I think it was about $5.  It was super easy to blow up and just added a little bit of fun to Meet the Teacher.

On the left you can see a big crate I set up for Klennix students turn in.  The black reading bulletin board is no longer there, and I'm slowly organizing the materials in those white cubbies.  Oh, and I definitely moved that Target bag on the floor before parents came in.

Through the windows you can see parts of my office.  Every classroom at my school comes with a very decent size teacher office.  My office is currently a disaster.  I basically just kept moving things in there that I did not have a location for.  Oppps.  I'll work on cleaning it later.

This picture (above) is just to show that it is OKAY to not be fully done in your classroom when parents come.  On the far right you will notice some books just shoved in cubbies without bins.  There are a lot of cubbies like this on the far left.  I had ordered more bins from ReallyGoodStuff but they didn't come in on time.  Guess how many parents or kids said something about this?  None.

The next two pictures are overviews of my entire room.

The "Ms. Jones is reading, are you?" section is 100% different now.  I tore it all off because I didn't like the way it looked.  I'm in the process of creating a fake bulletin board for this section.  I'll post pictures of it when I finish it.

In the years past, I've always let students pick their own seat for the first week.  I have found that this makes a tad more chaos during Meet the Teacher, so I decided to assign seats this year.  It make it a lot easier for students to find their seat, pick up their papers, and begin putting supplies away.

On each desk there is a sticky note name tag (because let's be real.... the seats will change once I get to know the kids).  There is also a folder with all the back to school paperwork for parents to fill out.  I include a simple checklist so parents can ensure they have everything done before turning it back in.  We're departmentalized at my school, and my amazing partner teacher created that flip book of information for our parents.  

There is also a lollipop with a cute tag from Glitter and Glue 4 k-2.  

On my back table I have very simple sign in sheets for parents.  (You can ignore the white paper.  It was a paper from our front office informing parents of first day of school procedures.)

We have a lot of bus riders at my school, so the first week of school students must have dismissal tags.  The bus tags indicate how they go home, and has all the contact information for parents.  In the past, I spent way too much time filing these tags out after parents told me their child's transportation.  This year I got smart and asked parents to fill them out for me.  Winning!

I did not have a fancy sign for "please leave completed bus tags here." It's okay.  Everyone lived.

The last thing I do is leave large bins around the classroom for students to organize the supplies that will be used by the entire class.  This allows me to put them all away before the first day of school.  I also put a (not fancy) anchor chart on the board to tell students which items go inside their desk.

The anchor chart was very useful because students were able to easily (and quickly) get their items organized.  The first day of school was still a bit chaotic, but at least most of our supplies were taken of.

That's a wrap for my Meet the Teacher night.  It's very simple, but it works.

Do you do anything special for Meet the Teacher?  I'd love to hear your ideas!  Leave a comment and let me know.

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Bucket Filler for Classroom Management

My first year of teaching I taught 2nd grade.   Before the school year started, I was on the hunt for all the tips and tricks I could find to help with classroom management.  I found the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today by Carol McCloud and knew I had to incorporate this book into my class!

On the first day of school I read this book to my students.  I hung my Bucket Filler poster on the wall, and we did all the "typical" read aloud activities.  After reading I had students discuss with their partner what it meant to be a Bucket Filler.

Students then work in small groups to sort situations into two categories:  bucket fillers and bucket dippers.  This is a great activity to have students work on when you're doing some of that necessary first week of school tasks (sorting supplies, initial assessments, etc).

After sorting the situations, students can work independently to complete the venn diagram.  I like having students complete the sorting activity first because it helps them come up with the adjectives to use in their venn diagram.

Since first posting this resource on Teachers Pay Teachers, I have updated this particular activity.  I realized it was difficult to come up with one word adjectives to describe bucket fillers and bucket dippers.  I added another page that says "words or phrases" instead of "adjectives."  I also realized there are not many similarities between these two type of students.   Due to this, I added a comparison sheet that focused just on differences.

In the coming weeks, I give students an independent activity to do during center rotations.  In second grade, students need A LOT of practice on routines during center rotations.   I like this activity because it requires students to think about common situations and how they could have been dealt with in a more positive way.

While I only do these specific activities during back to school, I talk about bucket fillers all year.  In my class I had a "bucket door."  Each student had a small library pocket with their name on it.

Next to the door, was a sand bucket with slips of paper.  Students could write a kind note to their classmates to "fill their bucket."  I taught students when the appropriate times were to fill out a note (before the morning bell, after work was completed, extra time at dismissal)

There are times I would stop instruction for 5 minutes and have each student pick a random classmate's name from a jar.  They have to write a bucket note to the classmate they pick.  At first, I got some groans because students did not want to write a note to someone who was not their best friend.  As the year went on, my class became a family.   I soon found students treasured the notes from classmates they were not friends with the most.  They loved seeing unexpected students say kind things about them.

Here are some of the other books you could use with Bucket Fillers:

           

{{  These are affiliate links.  The money earned from these links is used to further fund my classroom projects and keeping this blog going. }}

If you are interested in checking out the resources that I used to implement Bucket Filling in my classroom, you can check it out at my TpT store HERE.

 

Do you use Bucket Fillers in your classroom? Leave me a comment and let me know.  I'd love to hear how it works for you!  

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Teachers Pay Teachers Conference - Anaheim

Hello again, friends!  It's been awhile since I blogged.  I almost continued that sentence with "but things are going to change," then I remembered how often I have said that.    Hopefully I can get into the habit of blogging more often, but I'm not making any promises.... yet.

Last week I attended the 4th annual Teachers Pay Teachers conference in Anaheim, California.  This was the second conference I had attended.  If you are selling (or trying to sell) on TpT, you NEED to be at this conference.  I won't go into details about last year, because I blogged about it.  You can check out my recap of last year HERE.

Day 1: Saturday

This conference was different because I had to travel across the country.  The flight was long (and expensive), but I was lucky to get a direct flight.  I woke up at 4am to leave for the airport at 5am for a flight at 7am.  TIRED.  With the time change, I arrived in California at 9am.  The time change through me off the entire week and I'm pretty sure I never adjusted.

The shuttle was very quick and I was at my hotel a little after 10am.  Check-in wasn't until 4pm, but I decided to try to check-in early.  I GOT LUCKY and was given the last room that was ready.   After dropping off all my stuff and sitting for about 5 minutes, my roommates texted me that they had arrived.

People said I was crazy for sharing a hotel room with 3 girls I had never met in person.  The TeachersPayTeachers community is unlike any other though.  After talking to these girls for months on Social Media, I felt like I knew them.  Within 5 minutes of talking to them in person, I just about forgot that I haven't known these girls for years.   Instant friendships.

Sunday, the day I arrived, was very relaxed.  I was exhausted.  My roommates and I sat in the foodcourt for almost 3 hours just talking.  We went to dinner, and spent a couple more hours talking.

Day 2: Sunday

We all woke up early on Monday.  The time change was 3 hours for me, and my body did not adjust.  After having breakfast at Starbucks, we made our way to the registration area for the conference.  The energy was at an all time high.  Team TpT was all around getting everyone excited.   We were gifted a TpT backpack and a conference shirt this year.

My roommates and I decided to go to a little meet up for people attending the conference for the first time.  All but one of us had attended previous years, but we thought it would be a great way to meet some new people.  About 50 people showed up, and it was great getting to talk to new people.

Session 1:  Networking, Region #2
The first session of the day was for networking.  They split everyone up into 8 different regions and we had an hour to connect with people who lived near us. I enjoyed this, as I don't know many people around me who sell on TpT.  There were some activities, but I honestly did not follow them.  I mostly just talked to people.  I was able to find two girls who live somewhat near me in Florida and are at very similar stages of their TpT business.  I already know these girls will be lifelong friends.

Session 2:  TpT Town Hall LIVE
We all gathered back together to listen to a TpT Town Hall.  Team TpT talked about some initiatives they are working on and invited questions from sellers.

Session 3: Team TpT Breakout: The Nuts and Bolts of TpT Search
Adam Freed and Charlotte Weiskittel talked about how the search engine works and gave some tips for improving where our products show up in the search.

Session 4:  Team TpT Breakout: Make the Most of your Store Dashboard & UTM Code
Benson Perry, Bruce Hogan, Spencer Wright, and Susan Jones discussed UTM codes and how they can benefit your marketing.  I have heard the term UTM code, but have not taken the time to figure out what it meant.  UTM codes basically help track where traffic to your TpT store is coming from.  It makes it easier to see what type of pins or blog posts are bringing people to TpT.  I'm going to start using them, and you should too.

The first day was more of a "pre-conference."  The last breakout session ended at 5pm.  My roommates and I got back together and headed to Bubba Gumps for dinner.  Delicious!

Day 3: Tuesday

Once again, we all woke up bright and early.  We headed downstairs for the complimentary breakfast hosted by Team TpT.  

Keynote

The keynote started at 8am in the same room we were having breakfast.  Amy and Adam talked a bit about TpT before introduce the two keynote speakers.   Catherine Reed, The Brown Bag Teacher, talked first.  She talked about her journey on TpT and how she balances "all the plates."   After Catherine, Erin Cobb from Lovin' Lit spoke.   I went to Erin's session last year, so I knew I would love hearing her talk.  Erin is very real and doesn't hold back.  She is honest and funny;  I love how she doesn't sugarcoat anything.

Session 5: Product Quality with Erin Cobb

Erin talked about how to take your products and make them better.  She reached out on Facebook and had people submit products for her to review.  She gave honest tips about what these sellers could do to improve their product.  At the end, everyone got the sought after Teacher Seller planner.  I got one last year, and knew I had to have another.

Session 6: What's So Powerful About PBL?

April Smith talked about her success with creating products related to PBL and the importance of including some of these elements in your products.

Lunch

TpT brought in Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang to discuss "Emotions, Learning, and the Brain."  They provided lunch for everyone during her talk.  The line was very long, so two girls and I decided to head to the food court instead.  We really wanted to sit down for lunch and have time to talk, so unfortunately we did not attend this presentation.

Session 7: Panel:  Bridge Your Brand

I always love panel sessions, because I enjoy hearing different perspectives on a similar topic.  Jessica Ivey, Chris Kessler, Gretchen Vikingson, Joanne Miller, and Melissa Zaher discussed how they are growing their following and interacting with them.  They all use different platforms to do this, so it was great to hear so many ideas.

Session 8: Turn Your Followers Into Fans

Brittney Briggs (Miss5th) and Michelle Giffo (applesandabcs) discussed how they are building their brand on Instagram.  I LOVE instagram, so I really enjoyed listening to them talk.  I felt like I already knew a lot of what they were saying, but obviously need to implement a bit better.  

Session 9: Tailwind

Kevin Lorenz, from Tailwind, spoke about the platform and gave tips to utilize it better.  Once again I already knew most of what he was saying, but it was interesting to hear him discuss the direction Tailwind is going.  

Happy Hour with Team TpT

TpT hosted a happy hour at the Hilton, which is the hotel the conference was taking place at.  It was outside on an upper deck.  TpT provided a free drink coupon to all attendees, which was nice.  I enjoyed the Happy Hour because I felt like I was able to connect with a lot of people I "know" from Instagram but haven't met in person.  They had music playing and as the time went on the dance floor grew.  Everyone was having a great time.

Dinner

We left the happy hour after 8 and we were all starving!  We walked to Cheesecake Factory and had a delicious dinner.  Yum!

Day 4: Wednesday 

Breakfast and Welcome
Once again, TpT provided a complimentary breakfast for everyone.  During breakfast, they had a live interview with two administrators who are using TpT in their schools.   Personally, I did not enjoy this interview.  It was great to hear two administrators passionate about TpT, but this is just not the norm in my district.

Session 10: Build Your Email List

THIS was the session I was waiting for.  Chris Kesler broke it down and gave easy to follow steps to help build your email list.  I like how he explained how to do it, and then always gave specific examples of what it looked like for him.  

Session 11: Talking Teaching Trends

Marine Freibrun talked about some of the upcoming trends in education and how to tie them into your products.

Session 12: Take Photos that Capture Resources in Action

Natalie Kay Crockett is an amazing photographer!  Her session was a bit over my head, because she talked a lot about using a fancy camera.  I do not have a fancy camera (nor do I have any type of camera besides my phone) and I do not have intention of buying one.  She did give a few tips for editing photos in powerpoint, which was something I could use.  

Conference Wrap Up
At the end of the conference, TpT brought us all back together to make a big announcement.  The conference is being hosted in Nashville next year!!  I'm already excited. 

Private Event at House of Blues

On the last day of the conference, Teachers Pay Teachers hosted a private event at House of Blues.  They rented out the entire building!  It was great to walk in and see everyone having a great time.  The event was from 7pm-11pm.  Once again, the dance floor became more crowded as the night went on.  It was a great night and the perfect way to end the conference.

All in all it was a great conference.  I'm glad I went and I'm thankful for all the friendships I made.  I'm going to do another blog post in a few days on my biggest takeaways, but wanted to give you a detailed recap of how the conference went.  

Did anyone else go?  What was your favorite session?  My favorite is a tie between Erin Cobb's and Chris Kesler's.  

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